


Pharmacology of music

by shattered_crystal



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Doctor Magnus Bane, Drug Use, Drummer Alec Lightwood, Genius Magnus Bane, M/M, Protective Alec Lightwood, Slow Burn, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-12 00:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20555015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shattered_crystal/pseuds/shattered_crystal
Summary: What was meant to be a temporary fix has led Alec to become a permanent member of ‘The Lightwoods’. After seven years of being in the spotlight, he begins to rethink his decisions, wondering if the short burst adrenalin-fueled moments of euphoria that is his life are worth it.When Max overdosed with a rare type of drug that both the NYPD and FBI are currently investigating, Alec finds that there’s more than one way to get high. Or more importantly, more than one way to live.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. This is my first time writing since forever, so please bear with me. Just a heads up; this story is not beta-ed, so you'll probably see a lot of grammatical mistakes. That said, I am looking for one though so if you'd be so kind to suggest someone, please do let me know. Any feedback is much appreciated!

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

He could feel his heart pounding against his chest as the lights dimmed, enveloping the area in darkness. From where he was standing, Alec could see the crowd through the slither of space between the white curtain and the side wings; lights reflected at him, bathing the darken stadium with what looks like a sea of stars. What was once animated babbles emitting from the crowd now had turned to a full-blown scream of excitement as the mixing engineers starts to decrease the pre-show music to those recorded specifically for the concert; the energy was mind blowing.

Grinning, Alec turned to his right where he saw a similar expression mirrored on Jace’s face as stretched his fingers for the show. Ahead of him, Izzy was jumping in place while rolling her head from side to side with Max to her right, performing similar gesture as Jace as both of them watched the technicians made final adjustments to the instruments before leaving the stage altogether. The almost choreograph moves from the three of them are now almost ritualistic at this point, having been on tour for the better part of their seven-year music career. As the adrenalin begin to pump through his veins, Alec pulled the drumsticks he had tucked into his back-left jeans pocket and began to twirl one of it between his fingers. Up above the stage, he could see the timer counting down to the show; 2 minutes left. Before he could step towards Izzy however, Jace beat him to it, rounding up his siblings for another one of their pre-show rituals.

“Ready?” Max beamed, both his arms swinging to land on Jace and Izzy’s shoulders, pulling them close. Mirroring his action, the rest of the siblings did the same, heads huddled closely together.

“Four goes in,” Izzy began.

“Four comes out,” the boys replied.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

Giving both Jace and Izzy’s shoulders one last squeeze, he untangled himself from them and took a deep breath. Stepping back, he then nodded at Underhill who smiled back at him before shining a narrow beam of flashlight at the first green glow in the dark stickers on the floor marking his path to the drum set, his sibling following closely behind. Their silhouettes were all the audience could see, but that was enough – the deafening sound of their screams hit him like a brick wall. Reaching for his in-ear headphone as he sits on his drum stool, he then stuffed it in his ears, effectively blocking out most of their screams. He then hears the opening track of the show as he rolled his shoulders back, while watching Izzy gets into place, center stage in front of the mic. Nodding his head along with the intro rift from Jace’s electric guitar, Alec started the thumping beat from his own bass drum before the white curtain dropped down in time with Izzy’s voice. As the crowd goes wild, and Alec smirked from his throne.

No matter how many times they’ve done this, it never gets old.

-*-

‘_This, however, is something I can live without_,’ Alec scowled to himself as one of the many women invited tonight tried to plaster herself to his side. Dodging as she tried to lean further into him, Alec grabbed his beer from the counter and made his way to one of the miraculously empty bar table at the corner of the rooftop venue hosting tonight’s after party. His arms ached much more than usual, he noted, as he weaved through the chattering partygoers, nodding to the few people he recognised. Taking a swing of his beer, he then placed the half empty bottle on the tabletop while leaning sideways against the table. It was way past 3 a.m., he noted as he overlooks the vibrant New York City skyline. He ran his left hand through his slightly damp hair with a frown; he’d definitely need a shower before crashing in his bed tonight.

It is good to be back in New York though. Now that he finally had a moment to himself, he realised that the ache in his arms were deeper than he thought; it had seeped into his bones and penetrated his soul, leaving him weary of this lifestyle. The aftereffect from short burst adrenalin-fueled moments of euphoria had left him worst for wear after each show, only having to do it all again the next day. Through he wouldn’t trade his life for anything else, he wondered if the privileges awarded to him by this lifestyle was enough to fill the gaping hole of emptiness he’s been feeling of late. If it could ever mask the feeling of air slowly drawn out from his lungs and slowly suffocating him.

It’s been there for a while, he thought as he attempts to massage the strain in his neck, just shoved into a corner of his mind for the past year or so. That thought alone had him reeling more so than the alcohol he’s been steadily consuming throughout the night.

Shifting his view from the blinking lights below to distract himself from his depressing thoughts, Alec turned to look for his siblings since he’s not seen them since after the show. Shrugging his leather jacket off and setting it aside, he grimaces as he first found Jace on the makeshift dance floor beside the pool, grinding between two women. He was clearly enjoying the attention, judging by the blissed out look on his face. He wonders, not for the first time, how Jace was able to keep up with the seemingly endless women that enters his life.

Shaking his head, his focus was then drawn to Max at the far end of the pool, bracketed by two of his friends that Alec can barely recall, with more than a handful of women surrounding them. Like Max, both guys were barely of age, the three of them probably having met at one of the many clubs his youngest brother likes to frequent. Taking on more of Jace’s personality, Max is similarly enamored with the spotlight and fully embraces his rockstar persona. More times that he could count, Alec had to keep a watchful eye on his brother, fearing that Max would be another typical, tragic story of another rockstar joining the 27 club. Tonight was no different as he watched Max being pulled up from the couch by his friend, laughing, as he jostle up a bottle of Dom Pérignon high above their heads. Alec was contemplating walking over to them as one of Max’s two friends started to pour the champaign over one of the modelesque woman around them when Izzy stepped into his line of sight.

“Stop scowling, Alec. You’re far too young to start developing wrinkles,” teased Izzy as she walked closer to his table. Looking down, his scowl turned deeper as he saw the deep red minidress with plunging neckline she was wearing. He said nothing as Izzy gave him a pointed look while setting her own glass of champaign on the table next to his beer.

Of the four of them, Izzy was the only one that remained constant, the same person who Alec had watch grow since he was three. She still tackled everything this life has thrown at her with positivity, tenacity, and an almost obsessive single-minded stubbornness of wanting to make it to the top, so that the Lightwoods become a household name. She remains the backbone of the band and the family, steadily ensuring that the rest of them is not led astray by this vicious and shallow industry.

Alec honestly does not know how she does it.

“Do you enjoy this? This life?” he asked suddenly, words escaping him before he had a chance to filter them. As Izzy turned to look at him, he ducked his head down and dragged his fingers through the pool of moisture left behind by both of their drinks. For a few heartbeats, Izzy was silent, and Alec knows she’s studying him, trying to read between the lines of his unspoken words; he tensed slightly at that.

“Sometimes,” she began after a small eternity, and Alec watched her turning towards him from underneath his lashes. “You know better than anyone that this life was what I always dream about since we were kids. Not just the _fame and fortune_ part of it-” Alec chuckled at the use of air quotes and Izzy smiled. “The other stuff too.”

At that Alec smiled. He also knew better than anyone what, or specifically _how_, Izzy uses her _fame and fortune_ for. He remembered their talks underneath the pillow forts and solemn oaths whispered into darken nights of her dreams of helping orphaned and underprivileged kids rise and having the same opportunities as their peers. Knowing that, as shallow as it might seems, being an international celebrity will give her the best platform and resources she will need to make an actual difference.

The cause which she still holds dear and true to this day.

But it was the sigh that escaped her lips that made him looked up from the table he was scrutinizing, only to watch as her gaze lowered to the same spot he’s been staring at for the past few minutes.

“But I’d be lying if I said that I’m not a bit jaded of this life,” she said quietly, her voice almost drowned by the music. Alec takes in her posture, studying it, finally seeing the miniscule telltale of her weariness bleeding through her flawless armor; his baby sister was tired. He then wrapped his long arm around her shoulder, pulling her close, and dropping a chased kissed on top of her head.

“On the bright side, starting tomorrow, we can wake up as late as we want seeing the tour’s over and done with,” she chirped as Alec mumbled “Thank the Lord,” earning him a sharp nudge to his sternum. Pulling away, she looked up at him with a mischievous smile which Alec return by raising his eyebrow. He was just about to ask her what she was thinking about, when a loud crash cut through the blaring music, affectively pulling both the Lightwood sibling’s attention towards it.

“Help! Somebody call 911!” one of Max’s friend screamed in panic amongst a crowd of people gathered around him. At his next words, Alec felt his stomach drop as he sprint towards the other side of the rooftop.

“It’s Max! He’s not breathing!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit heavy and long. Please bear with me; there was a lot of things to get through.  
Also, text in _italic_ indicates flashbacks.

Alec exhaled softly as he rubbed his left hand over his face, the 3-day stubble on the bottom half of his face prickling his palm. Blinking his eyes slowly, he straightened up from slouching in the hard, plastic chair he’d been sitting on for the better part of the night to stretch his back. Slit-eyed, he could make out the shape of both Izzy and Jace sharing a sofa on the other side of the small room with Izzy curled up against Jace, both asleep. Narrow slivers of sunlight managed to seep through the closed curtains though Alec couldn’t gauge the time; a quick glance to his wrist indicated that it was just ten minutes past nine. The doctors should be around soon for rounds.

It’s been almost two days since the night of the after party, and the Lightwood siblings have not left the hospital since. Though the incident was mostly a blur to Alec, there were moments from the night that had managed to sear itself into his brain, replaying over and over again in his mind like a broken record.

Him pushing past the crowd to get to his brother; the panic he felt as he dropped to his knees to perform CPR on an eerily still Max.

_“C’mon Max. Don’t you fucking dare give up,” Alec hissed between breaths as he pumped Max’s chest._

The shouts of the emergency respondents in the ambulance during the short ride to the hospital.

_“He’s tachycardic; I can’t get him to stabilize!” one of the emergency responders cried out as he stopped compression to check on Max’s pulse._

The feeling like the ground was pulled away from under his feet as the doctor treating Max sat the three of them down to explain his current situation.

_“When Max came to the hospital, he was in a pretty bad shape. As you know, his heart had stopped. The CPR you preformed, Mr. Lightwood, as well as those done by our emergency responders had helped ensured that he stayed alive. Although we were able to get his heart beating again, his heart rate was not ideal, and he became tachycardic as he was reaching this hospital,” the doctor began as she looked at each of them calmly. _

_Alec stared back stoically, his hand in Izzy’s gripping hers tighter._

_“Unfortunately, once Max had reached the ER, he had also began seizing, which had complicated his condition. We had tried to handle both conditions at the same time and he responded well to our treatment for his arrythmia. However, Max would not stop seizing despite us giving him the best available treatment we have, so we were forced to put him in a medically induced coma to temporarily suppress his brain activities,” she continued slowly, and Alec felt rather than heard Izzy sob next to him._

_“How long are you planning to put him under?” Alec heard Jace asking, though his voice sounds very far away._

_“Not for long, though we can’t be entirely certain until we see his brain pattern starts to normalize. Because of the arrythmia, part of his brain became oxygen-starved which had caused the seizures. By putting him under, we’re hoping to give his brain some time to heal naturally, to minimize any further complication,” she explained. Jace nodded weakly at this while he ran his hand down Izzy’s back soothingly. After a heartbeat, the doctor continued._

_“I’m sorry to say that we also discovered that Max has an acute kidney injury, which we suspect is due from drug use. We had expedited his bloodwork once we realized this and had found high concentration of foreign substances in his system, though without a proper drug screen, we can’t know for certain.”_

_“Drugs?” Izzy hiccupped._

_“Yes. Enough so that we believe it could be one of the factors which caused his cardiac arrest. His body is having a hard time dispelling those foreign substances from his body, so we need to help him along by doing dialysis. We would also like to perform a drug screening test to be on the safe side so that we could identify the substances he was using. We would need your consent for both, I’m afraid,” he replied, and it was only then that Alec saw the clipboards on her lap. _

_Pulling away from Izzy, Alec then heard himself say, “Where do I sign?”_

With a sharp inhale, Alec shot up from his seat, vertigo effectively stopping the nauseous feeling in his stomach. Though he tried to shake off the memories, he knew that the image of Max that night will be one of those he would never forget. With shaking hands, he grabbed the plastic jug of water on the small table pushed to the corner of the room, poured himself a cup, and drowned its content in a few gulps; it did little to ground him. For the umpteen time, he exhaled heavily again.

“Couldn’t sleep?” a voice croaked from the sofa, making him jump and almost dropping the now empty cup.

“Jesus, Jace. I thought you were asleep!” Alec exclaimed softly, turning towards his brother. Jace smirked weekly at that, but otherwise remain unmoved.

“Have been awake for a while now. I didn’t want to wake her; she needed the rest,” Jace mumbled quietly as he looked down at the sleeping Izzy. Pulling the blanket closer to her body, Jace shifted slightly, pulling Izzy into a more comfortable position. She slept on.

Alec winced internally at that; Jace was right. Neither of them had ever seen Izzy so broken as she did. For hours on end right up until Max was brought into this room a few hours ago, she had been alternatively crying and staring into space forlornly, while clinging closely to either or both her brothers. Both Jace and Alec had tried to calm her down multiple times with little success; they were trying to wrap their heads around the situation themselves. It wasn’t until Max was transferred from the ER to the private ICU room they were currently in that she managed to fall into an exhausted slumber.

“How is he?” Jace asked, and Alec turned to look at Max who was on the other side of the room, behind a glass separator.

What little color that had returned to his face were blocked off by the breathing tube the doctors had inserted in him to help him breathe. Multitudes of wires were hooked up to his frail frame, monitoring his vitals of which, aside from his blood pressure, made little sense to Alec. To the left side of his bed, Alec could see the dialysis machine, currently turned off after completing Max’s treatment.

“I have no fucking clue. His blood pressure looks okay, so I’m guessing he’s stable. We’ll know more when the doctors get here,” Alec shrugged, before turning back to face Jace, only finding himself face to face with a smiling doctor instead. Alec smiled slightly back at her while Jace shook Izzy awake.

“Good morning doctor…” Alec started before realizing that he completely forgotten her name. She chuckled slightly at his guilty face before waving it off.

“It’s fine; all of you had a very stressful few days that I’m surprise you’re all still standing,” she replied turning her face to Jace and Izzy who was still sitting by the sofa. “I’m Dr Branwell,” she continued as she extended her hand towards Alec, shaking his hand, and repeating the same action to both Jace and Izzy.

“Good morning doctor. How is he doing today?” Jace asked as he pulled himself up from the sofa to stand next to Alec.

“From the looks of his charts from last night, he looks as if he’s on the mend, though not completely out of the woods yet. Let me have a quick look at his vitals before I give all of you and update of his conditions, okay?” she replied. At the nod from the other three, she then pulled on her protective gear before entering the room through the automated sliding door. As Alec and Jace watched her study Max’s vitals, Izzy joined them, standing next to Jace.

After a small eternity, Dr Branwell scribbled some final notes onto the charts at the foot of Max’s bed, before leaving the enclosed room and joining the three siblings. Pulling off the facemask she had been wearing, she then motioned them to have a seat; Alec, Jace, and Izzy squished beside each other on the sofa and her on the plastic chair.

“Have you contacted your parents at all?” she began, looking at Alec.

“No, not yet. Our PR team is working on keeping everything that had happened under wraps for the time being and nothing has been leaked to the media yet, so nobody except us knows what’s been happening. We prefer to know more of Max’s condition and wait until he’s stable before we call our parents,” Alec explained as both Jace and Izzy nodded along.

“That’s fine. The staff at this hospital is very discreet though some people from your PR team have also stopped by to make sure nothing leaks from our side as well. I can assure you that your brother’s condition will remain confidential,” she replied.

“Thank you doctor,” Jace said and she smiled slightly at that before her expression turned serious.

“Like I mentioned before, your brother’s condition continues to improve as compared to when he was brought in a couple of days ago. His hear rate and pressure is stable, and his brain activities looks to be improving. On that aspect, I feel that we should be able to slowly decrease his medication to start reversing the coma we’ve put him in sometime later today,” she began, and Alec couldn’t help the sigh of relief that escaped him. Next to him, he heard the same from Jace and Izzy as well.

“At least that’s one good news,” Izzy mumbled quietly.

“Yes, but I’m afraid there’s where it ends,” Dr Branwell replied. “I’ve received your bother’s blood work result this morning prior to coming here, and it looks like the concentration of the foreign substances in his blood is still high despite being on dialysis yesterday. Because of this, I would like to do another round or two of dialysis, to further reduce the stress on his kidneys.”

Turning to his siblings and communicating silently between themselves, Alec nodded his head. “Sure doctor, please do whatever you think is best for him.”

“The foreign substance you mentioned, could the drug screen test not tell you what it was,” Izzy wondered aloud before Dr Branwell could continue.

“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I had also received his tox screen result along with his blood work result this morning. We found an alarmingly high concentration of cocaethylene in his system; this specifically indicated that there was a high probability of him having taken cocaine sometime within 24 hours prior to the cardiac arrest. However, there was also another substance that we could not identified as it did not match any of the drug type in our database,” she explained, and Alec frowned at that.

“How is that possible?” he chimed, and Dr Branwell exhaled softly at that.

“One possibility is that it’s a new type of drug that is uncommon and it is not in the database yet. However, we’ve been seeing several cases in the past few months which matches the symptoms your brother had presented. Fortunately, your brother is one of the very few cases where the patient had survived the episode,” she clarified.

“You mean to tell me that all everyone who had been taking whatever drug Max had took ends up dead?” Jace exclaimed.

“Most, yes. Though the number of cases we’ve received are not that high – 20 to be exact – the survival rate is quite low; your brother is the third,” she replied; Alec felt like he was being punched in the gut.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, and Dr Branwell nodded.

“Exactly. Given the higher than usual mortality rate for this substance, understandably the NYPD had stepped in to try and figure out the cause behind these cases,” she continued but Izzy cut her off.

“The NYPD?”

“Yes. I am not at liberty to discuss the cases of the other patients with you due to confidentiality, but one common ground between it all was that the unidentified foreign substance found in Max’s system is almost always present alongside the cocaine metabolite I mentioned earlier – cocaethylene. However, the unknown substance itself is not a metabolite of cocaine, which could suggest that you brother was using some sort of a new formulation of cocaine or a mix of multiple drugs,” Dr Branwell explained.

There was a pregnant pause as the three siblings tried to digest what Dr Branwell had said. Turning slightly, Alec had realized the three of then had unconsciously leaned more towards each other as if to borrow strength from one another, and Alec moved to wrap his arms around Izzy’s shoulder. Inhaling deeply, he then turned back towards Dr Branwell before asking, “What do we do now?”

“The detective in charge of this case is wanting to know if you’d be willing to corporate with them to try and catch the culprit behind the new cocaine formulation. He is currently waiting outside. If you don’t mind, would you be willing to meet with him?” she asked. Alec, turning back to his siblings, silently asking their opinion on the matter. Jace without hesitation nodded, giving his consent, while Izzy had shrugged slightly at the thought.

“Iz?” he asked quietly.

For a while, she didn’t reply, only sinking more to his side; Alec waited patiently. Slowly, his thumb stoked the side of her shoulder, quietly assuring her that it was for the best – that everything was going to be alright. After a while, she too nodded her head in consent.

“Yes, we’re good to talk to him,” Alec said out loud, though his sight never left the top of Izzy’s head.

“Great. Let me just go get him,” Dr Branwell replied as she got up from her seat and exited the room.

“This is so fucked up,” Jace exhaled as he leaned back into the sofa as soon as Dr Branwell left.

“Tell me about it,” Izzy mumbled in reply. Alec said nothing.

A few minutes later, Dr Branwell came back into the room with another man behind her. Standing up, Alec took the offered hand with a small smile as the detective introduced himself.

“Thank you for meeting with me. I’m Detective Luke Garroway from the NYPD,” he said as he showed them his badge. “Please, call me Luke.”

“Hello Luke. I’m Alec, and these are my siblings, Izzy and Jace,” Alec replied, introducing Izzy and Jace respectively. All of them then sat back down in their previous seats, while Dr Branwell excused herself to check up on her other patients.

“I understand that Dr Branwell had briefly explained to you what’s going on?” Luke began and after a nod from everyone, he continued. “As she mentioned, you brother’s case is quite special, him being only the third to survive. Because of this, he is the best lead we have so far. If you don’t mind, I would like to ask some questions to see if we can figure what’s going on.”

“I’m not sure if what little information we would have that will be of use to you but feel free to ask anything,” Alec replied, and Luke nodded his head in thanks. Pulling out a small notebook from his jacket pocket, he then turned back to the three siblings.

“Can you tell me what happened two days ago leading up to him passing out on the floor?” he began without any preamble.

“We had just wrapped up our tour for our latest album, and the record company had thrown an afterparty like they always do to celebrate, four blocks from here. It was just a twenty minutes past three in the morning when it happened. I was talking to Izzy at the other side of the rooftop when someone screamed that Max was not breathing. I ran over to him and performed the CPR while Izzy called 911. A few minutes in, the paramedics came and took over, and rushed him to this hospital,” Alec summarized while Luke scribbled the information in his notebook.

“Who was he with? Did you visibly see him take any kind of substance?”

“He was with two others; Matt and Pete. The three of them were just fooling around from what I could tell but wasn’t doing anything remotely close to cocaine or any other drugs. The only thing I saw was that he had drank a few glasses of champaign and a few beers throughout the night,” Jace answered, surprising Alec; he had thought Jace was off in his own world without keeping tabs on the rest of them.

“Matt and Pete?” Luke queried.

“Matt Hasting and Peter Taylor; his two friends from high school. All four of us are born and raised here in New York so some of our close friends are from around here. Matt and Pete are two of his closer friends; Max tend to invite them to any of the parties we throw here in New York. They’re good kids, not into drugs as far as I know but I could be wrong,” Jace elaborated.

“Do you know then personally?” Luke asked.

“Yes, but I am not as close to them as Max is. Max and I tend to hit the clubs regularly together, and like I said, when we are in New York specifically, Max tend to invite them to tag along. All three of them are the same age and met when they started high school. Both of them are currently attending college somewhere,” Jace shrugged, and Luke nodded his head in understanding.

“I’ll probably talk to them later to see if I can get any information from them. Anything else from that day that stood out to any one of you specifically?” Luke asked, looking at Izzy and Alec.

“He was nervous. The morning of the show while the both of us were having a late lunch, he had said that he was nervous, which was odd to me. He rarely, if ever, mentioned that he is anything other than excited throughout our career together. I had tried to talk to him more about it, but we had to get to soundcheck, and I didn’t see him until about an hour before the show. When I pulled him to the side to ask if he was alright, he acted like he normally did - all smiles and positive energy - and had said nothing was wrong,” Izzy replied after a short pause.

At that, Alec too remembered the day of, where he skipped breakfast and lunch altogether and had gone directly to soundcheck. It wasn’t until Jace, Max, and himself were together in one of the backstage dressing rooms before the show that he recalled seeing Max happily chatting with Raj and Underhill while Raj was putting on his beltpack transmitter for his guitar.

“I didn’t notice him acting any different from normal either while we were in the dressing room; he didn’t seem nervous at all,” Alec confirmed.

“How long have you been performing together? I mean, no offence, I know of your band – my daughter is a huge fan – but I’m unfamiliar with your work,” Luke clarified somewhat nervously that Alec chucked.

“None taken. Long story short, Izzy and Jace started the band when they were 18, about ten years ago. Three years in, they were about to start their first big tour when their drummer died from a drug overdose. Since they had little time to find someone to replace him, I had stepped in as a temporary replacement and it was then than Max join the band too. All of us have been performing since,” Alec recalled.

“And Max was, what, 15 at the time?” Luke asked for clarification.

“16.”

“Okay. And the drummer you replaced –“

“Jonathan Morgenstern,” Jace chipped in.

“Right, he died from a drug overdose?”

“Yes. Our manager found his body at his apartment when he didn’t turn up for one of our rehearsals,” Jace replied.

“I see. Was this in New York?” Luke asked.

“No, actually. It was in L.A., where we first got our big break. We were there for the first three years of our career before moving back here to New York when Alec and Max joined our band,” Jace said.

“How did you meet Jonathan?”

“When Jace and I got signed on to our current label, they had told us that we needed a drummer. After we agreed, they had done several auditions and had chosen him to join our band. To be honest, the three of us did not really get along – call it a clash of character – but we managed to make it work,” Izzy answered, her faced soured slightly at the thought of their former bandmate.

“I see. I might need to follow up on that though,” Luke replied almost distractedly as he noted down what Izzy had said.

“You think it might be connected to Max?” Alec asked, surprised.

“It might. Considering that it was also drug related, there could be something there we can work with,” Luke replied after a pause.

“But people do drugs all the time. What makes you think that this two could be connected?” Izzy countered.

“Well, what we found was that the 20 cases Dr Branwell mentioned before was that all of them were of high-profile figures. We’ve managed to keep them under wraps for the time being though I’m not sure for how much longer if this trend keeps up, but it suggests that this drug, whatever it is, is only being offered to a select few. So, the fact that your drummer had also died from overdose is too much of a coincident for me to not investigate it,” Luke clarified and the three of them nodded their heads in understanding. After looking through the notes he had taken throughout their conversation, he then looked back up to the siblings. He hesitated before asking his next question. “I hate to ask, but did any of you suspected that Max have been taking drugs at any time for the past few years?” 

“No, not at all. We were just as surprise as everyone else when we found out. He is rarely away from any one of us for any longer than a few hours so we don’t know when he would be taking the drugs in the first place. Nothing seemed ordinary and he had showed no behavior changes from the Max that we grew up with,” Alec said fervently.

“No dietary changes like he would eat less or drink more? No changes in sleep pattern? No temper flaring at odd times?” Luke countered, and Alec turned to look at his siblings.

“Nothing,” Izzy replied as Jace shook his head.

“Was he depressed or anxious in any way?” Luke asked.

“Aside from that time that I mentioned earlier, nothing stood out,” Izzy responded.

“Okay, at least that is also consistent with all of the other similar cases as this,” Luke disclosed as he again consulted his notes. After scribbling a few final thoughts on this notebook, the then closed it and slipped it back into his inner jacket pocket.

“So, what now?” Jace asked as he watched Luke slid his pen into his pocket.

“Like I mentioned earlier, we will likely follow-up with our colleagues over at L.A., which probably means that the people over at the F.B.I. will likely start joining our investigation if we found something. But let’s not cross that bridge until we get there. For now, we are working closely with Alicante Pharmaceuticals to try and figure out how to identify the substance that is present in all the victim’s system,” Luke explained.

“A pharmaceutical company?” Izzy wondered out loud and Luke nodded in reply.

“Yes. One of their pharmacologists is well verse in this type of drug having done his doctorate on it, so we’ve been engaging with him to help us with this case. He’ll likely would want to take some samples for further analysis in his lab, so we’ll need your consent for that. He was supposed to be here with me today but -,” Luke said but before he could finish his sentence, there was a knock on the door before someone stepped through into the room. Before Alec could turn and look at the newcomer, a shiver ran through Alec’s spine as he heard the other man speak.

“Sorry I’m late. Traffic was hell.”


End file.
